I blend in with the spectators, keeping my head down and my hands steady, the envelope pressed tight to my side. Whatever Carrie’s handed off, I know it’s big. Now I just have to find a safe place to open it.
After the chaosof the event, the block is buzzing but a little quieter than usual. Most guys are tired, slumped on their bunks, trading stories about the games or arguing over who got shorted on juice. I’m lying on my bunk, the envelope still wedged deep in my waistband. I wait until Jace and Nico shuffle in a few minutes later, both of them still fuming about how the afternoon played out.
Jace throws himself onto his bunk, running a hand through his hair. “You see her? She didn’t even look at us. All smiles for Carlisle and that asshole Bradley. Like we don’t exist anymore.”
Nico glances at me, as if he’s trying to read my face. “She’s up to something. That’s not the same Carrie. She looked so different today. And I’m not just saying that she dressed up. She looked positively ill the last few days.”
“Don’t you remember what she confessed to me?” Jace says impatiently. “It was obviously a front to get us to pity her. But now that’s not working, so she’s changed tactics.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” I say.
“I can’t believe you’re still defending her after all this time,” Jace says, shaking his head.
I give the door a quick glance, checking the bars and the hallway outside. The guards are finishing the last of their post-game rounds, voices echoing down the block. I keep my voice low. “Enough. I need to show you something. Something Carrie left for me. She made it look like nothing, but…” I shake my head, pulling it out and setting it on the bunk between us.
Nico sits down, eyeing it like it might bite. “You sure it’s safe? You sure she’s not trying to get us caught?”
I shrug, my gut twisting. “I don’t know. But I watched her. Nobody else saw.”
Jace gestures, still bristling. “Well, open it.”
I tear the seal carefully, hands steady but my heart racing. I dump out the contents onto my blanket—a small plastic bag withtwo thin metal lockpicks, a folded-up map on old printer paper, and a scrap covered in tight handwriting.
I flatten the map and point. “Look. It’s the admin hall and service tunnels. She marked the laundry route and an exit. These Xs here—camera dead spots. And these notes? Guard rotations, and the exact minute the cameras reset. The slip’s got times when the halls are empty.”
Nico picks up the lockpicks, giving a low whistle. “She got these inside? You think they’ll actually work?”
I nod, voice a whisper. “We’ve all seen worse work. If we use the admin closet and time it with the feed loop, it might actually get us out.”
Nico holds the map up, studying it, then looks at me and Jace. “So does this mean what I think it means?”
I nod, my heart pounding as the truth sinks in. “Yeah. I think so.”
Jace’s eyes narrow. “Carrie’s planning on breaking us out of here.”
23
WRECKER
This is insane.
I stare at the lockpicks, the map, and the folded paper spread across our bunk, and can’t keep my voice down any longer. “We’re not actually planning on doing this, are we?” I look at my brother, expecting him to laugh it off or call me paranoid. But the look on Nico’s face says something else entirely. He’s got that restless, stubborn glint in his eyes—the one that always gets us into trouble.
Jace leans against the wall, arms crossed, just watching us. Nico’s tracing the pencil marks on the map, his jaw tight.
I run a hand over my face. “Seriously, you all want to risk everything on this? On Carrie?”
Before anyone can answer, Nico nudges the envelope. “There’s something else. Bottom of the flap. You feel it?”
I reach in and pull out a scrap of folded notebook paper. On first glance, it’s just a few sentences, handwritten in Carrie’s neat, slanted style. But every other word seems out of place, strange. She’s never been careless with words. Not with us.
Nico squints, reading over my shoulder. “‘Laundry…sunset…guard left…no window…Coleson’… What is this, code?”
I turn the note around in my hands. “If she’s got eyes on her, maybe this was the only way she could explain.”
Jace leans in, his suspicion shifting to curiosity. “What’s she trying to tell us?”
I study the letter, my pulse picking up as I see a pattern, key words and phrases scattered through the lines. I read aloud, slow and careful, piecing together the real message hidden in plain sight. “Laundry at sunset, left corridor when guard leaves, no window for thirty minutes…”
